Fifth Gen Pontiac T/A – 2011 Trans Am

Hot Rodders Show How GM Should Have Done It.

When news of the Camaro’s rebirth got teeth back in 2006, the HOT ROD staff was frothing at the mouth, and it wasn’t long before one of us asked the question, “I wonder if they’ll do a Firebird version of it?” Of course, Pontiac still existed at the time, so it seemed logical. We then saw designer Kevin Morgan’s concept drawing of a new Trans Am (below), using the Camaro as the base. He hit it out of the park with the rendering, which appeared in the May ’07 issue, and we’re not the only ones to think so.

Tod Warmack at Trans Am Depot in Tallahassee, Florida (www.transamdepot.com), thought the same thing and told his brother and business partner, Scott, “If Pontiac doesn’t build a Trans Am, we can do it based on Kevin’s design.”

Of course, there weren’t any cars available at the time, but thanks to his SEMA membership, Tod had access to the cad-cam data on the new Camaro and gathered the information needed to make the tooling to turn the Chevy into a Trans Am. About a year later, Todd Otto at Otto Body in Lincoln, Nebraska (www.ottobody.com), was thinking the same thing and called Kevin with the offer to build a one-off TA, just because he wanted to do it. Kevin contacted Tod (Warmack) and told him of the plan, and the three of them hashed out the details. Trans Am Depot bought a new Camaro and delivered it to Otto Body, which built the car in a relative hurry to hit the deadline of making it to the Trans Am Nationals in Dayton, Ohio, in August 2009 for its debut.

“The first car was built to make it 3-D and see what worked and what didn’t. You know, so we could step back and look at it and see how it looked,” Tod says. As soon as the first car was done, the team began refining the design on a second car.

After seeing the first car at the TA Nats, Pypes Performance Exhaust called and asked if it could have it for its ’09 SEMA booth. Tod told Pypes that No. 2 was the better deal and he was already working on it. The company said yes, and the mad thrash truly began. “This car was built in a little more than four weeks. It required literally sleeping at the shop at times,” Tod says.

The Trans Am design cues are everywhere, but nowhere more evident than in the nose and hood. The Camaro front fascia was reshaped with urethane for the distinctive ’77- and ’78-style beak, and an egg-crate grille insert replaced the Camaro’s vertical bar grille. The Shaker scoop is fully functional and made out of two ’78 Shakers. And, of course, one can’t miss the defining detail, the one that smacks you over the head and insists, “It’s a Trans Am, dammit!”-the big screaming chicken on the hood.

Moving aft, we find the appropriate fender ducts, and at the tail end lies the general Camaro shape but with taillights sourced from another GM car, a big lip spoiler, and a few other subtle changes. Combine that with the black and gold paint scheme and the gold snowflake-ish wheels and the look is undeniably Trans Am. The interior was also given the touch with a custom dash treatment, stitching, and sill plates. And it all works seamlessly, as though Pontiac never left us and this is its latest offering to the muscle-hungry masses.

This car was developed by loyal Pontiac fans, but not just to commemorate the past. The plan is to build more of them. Otto Body did the build and all the fabrication off of Kevin Morgan’s design, and Trans Am Depot will sell the conversions. All this is very new, so there are a lot of details still to iron out, but complete conversions will be done at Trans Am Depot in Florida and Otto Body in Nebraska. They’re considering selling the individual parts, but according to Tod, “The numbered, Kevin Morgan Signature Edition cars will all go through one of the two shops.”

Pressed for a ballpark price tag, Tod says, “My best guess is that it’ll run from the low 20s for the conversion to the high 40s, depending on options.”

Right now, the team is working on two more cars for one customer while constantly refining the design. By the time the program is ready to roll, the car will look a bit different from this one. “We’ve been contacted by quite a few people who want us to build them a car, but we’re putting them off until the finished kit comes out in March or April. We’re working on refinements while not under the deadline pressure of SEMA, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the changes we’re doing from this car,” Tod says. And to add fuel to the fire, he let it slip that they’re also thinking of working on ’69 and ’70 versions of the car.

So there you go, Trans Am lovers. Even though Pontiac is no more, you can still have your brand-new, modern Trans Am. And if you’re thinking about a 2011 sequel to Smokey and the Bandit, well, so are we.